In the diplomatic encounter, Mentschikoff had no more chance than the fiend in a moral tale of _diablerie_, who urges weak man to sign his soul away after the good angel has come to the rescue. Baffled at all points, he departs with all the diplomatic train, muttering vengeance. And here ends the first act of the drama, when the pretexts of the Czar have vanished, and he shows his true design. The next begins with the crossing of the Pruth by the Russian forces, in order to secure the material guarantee of the Danubian provinces. But the menacing position of Russia was not the only change in the situation. England, who in the earlier dispute had no more interest than the other Western Powers in opposing Russia, had in the progress of the controversy made herself so prominent that she was, in the judgment of Lord Clarendon, bound to defend the provinces of the Sultan against an unprovoked attack by Russia. That she had laid herself under this obligation was entirely owing to the lofty part which Lord Stratford had played in the drama. On the other hand, had Lord Stratford not been so ready and conspicuous in his championship, the Divan, feeling itself unsupported, might have yielded to the demands of Russia. For a great part of the narrative, then, the principal positions have been occupied by England, Russia, and Turkey; and the interest imparted to scenes which, from an ordinary hand, would have been eminently tedious, is wonderful. But at this juncture, King Charles I., who has long been impending, can no longer be kept out of the memorial. The iniquitous machinations of the French Emperor are brought into the foreground. The occasion for enlarging on them is that which we shall presently state. But first we must say that it is from no wish to dilate on what we think the blemish of the book that we expatiate on this theme. It is because it is mixed up with all the main parts of a work which we are bound to treat as an authentic history. But it happens that, for a reason to be noted hereafter, we can, without injury to the texture, separate this portion from the rest; and we therefore propose to follow this thread of the narrative to its end, and so, having done with it, to be at liberty, for the rest of these volumes, to approve no less warmly than we admire.